


i swear i hate you when you leave (but i like it anyway)

by hi_raeth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5+1, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies With Benefits, F/M, Modern AU, enemies turned lovers, like sure they tried. but it became all soft and fluffy anyway, look it's rey and kylo these two are too soft and precious for hate sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 17:38:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14753342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_raeth/pseuds/hi_raeth
Summary: Rey’s all about putting herself in other people’s shoes and empathy and being understanding, but Kylo Ren is The Actual Worst and no amount of empathy will ever change that. Seriously, fuck that guy. Also: literally, fuck that guy.Or: five times Rey and Kylo have hate sex, and one time they do something... more.





	i swear i hate you when you leave (but i like it anyway)

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been like a month since I last posted something so here, have this piece of... I don’t even know. Rey and Kylo being soft, precious idiots as usual, basically. I’ll be back with your regularly-scheduled quality-but-not-really content soon, hopefully.
> 
> Title taken from Halsey's _Ghost_.

The first time it happens is on a Friday night like any other: Rey and Finn are over for movie night, the boys are out on a last-minute alcohol run, and she’s in the kitchen putting together snacks for the evening.

So _maybe_ she’s singing under her breath and _maybe_ she’s dancing around the kitchen as she flits from microwave to fridge to countertop and _maybe_ she’s a little too comfortable in a place that isn’t her own, but none of that warrants the snide comment Poe’s asshole of a roommate feels the need to make when he stumbles upon her.

“Way to make yourself at home,” Kylo scowls at her when he shuffles into the kitchen and nearly bumps into her, and the fucking _giant_ of a man uses so much force to push past her that Rey nearly stumbles.

It’s hardly the first time he’s seen fit to behave this way – she’s known him for two months and they’ve pretty much been at each other’s throats since day one – and really, Rey should know better than to let him get to her by now. But it’s been an awful week and this is the first time in days that she’s felt even remotely relaxed and must he ruin _everything_? “At least Poe actually wants me here,” she retorts sharply, levelling a glare at him when he turns away from the fridge to face her.

If Poe were here he’d probably rush in between the both of them and defuse the situation with a bad joke and an easy smile, talk Kylo down and reassure him that _of course_ Rey’s just kidding, _of course_ he’s happy to have his childhood friend as his roommate. But Poe’s somewhere out there trying to score the cheapest drinks available and Rey doesn’t give a single flying fuck about Kylo Ren’s fragile ego, so here they go.

“What would _you_ know about being wanted, _Niima_?” Kylo sneers the reminder at her as he slams the fridge door behind him, and from there it’s the usual: raised voices and barbed insults that escalate into personal things, hurtful things, and at some point Rey shoves at him with her palms on his chest and he grabs her wrists and–

And then it’s a whole new thing entirely.

Rey will swear up and down, till the day she dies, with her dying breath: Kylo moves first. He’s the one who kisses her mid-sentence and he’s the one who picks her up a minute later and he’s the one who walks them to his bedroom.

It doesn’t matter that she kisses him back, doesn’t matter that she secures her legs around his waist and nods frantically when he mumbles _bed?_ against her lips and pulls him back down when he pauses to wonder out loud if this is a bad idea.

After, she gets dressed in record time and thanks every god there is that the guys aren’t back yet. Kylo is still in bed, still flat on his back as he breathes heavily, still staring up at his ceiling in disbelief.

“Let’s never speak of this again,” Rey commands as she pulls her messy hair into a tight bun, and she closes the door behind her before he can get a single word in.

 

* * *

 

“I told you we’re never doing this again,” Rey hisses as Kylo sets her down on some stranger’s bathroom counter, her words entirely at odds with the frantic way she’s reaching for his pants and undoing his belt.

He hikes her dress up to her waist and pauses between kisses to correct her. “No, you said not to _speak_ of this again. You never said anything about doing it again.”

She’d like to punch that smug look right off his face, but Rey settles for a bruising kiss instead. In the back of her mind she knows how incriminating this is going to look, knows they’re going to rejoin the party with matching swollen lips and rumpled clothes and disheveled hair and _fuck_ , Poe is going to take one look at them and know–

“Rey,” Kylo mumbles against her neck, his fingers hooked into the sides of her panties. “Rey, yes or no?” He’s panting into her shoulder and desperately hard against her thigh but somehow he still has the presence of mind to notice she’s zoned out, to pick up on her hesitation and check in with her.

Stars, how is it fair that this complete asshole of a man is also the most courteous partner she’s ever had?

“Yes,” she tells him, shaking away all thoughts of Poe and his brotherly disapproval and silent disappointment as she reaches out to unzip Kylo’s fly and push his jeans down. They’re in college, after all – pretty much everyone here has had no-strings-attached sex, and really, Rey grudgingly admits to herself in the private confines of her mind, she could do a lot worse than her ridiculously well-built mortal enemy. “Yes, keep going.”

Kylo sighs in relief, mutters a _thank fucking god_ into her hair as they make quick work of their undergarments and Rey hooks her legs around his back to urge him closer.

At some point it occurs to her that she’s letting the most insufferable man she’s ever met fuck her in a friend of a friend’s bathroom, and there’s probably a line forming outside said bathroom with a ton of disgruntled eavesdroppers.

Maybe she’ll care about that later; maybe she’ll lie awake all night in mortification. But for now, Rey clutches at Kylo’s shoulders and hides her face in the crook of his neck and doesn’t let herself think of anything other than how good and wrong this feels.

She tries to hold on to that feeling as they get dressed, tries not to let her cheeks burn in shame as Kylo reaches for a paper towel and cleans her up with disconcerting gentleness before he picks her panties up from the floor and hands them over.

“You go ahead,” he tells her as she hops off the counter and straightens out her dress, an unsettling softness in the way he looks at her, the way he smiles at her. “I’ll wait.”

Rey struggles to find words, tries desperately to think of something that’ll break them out of this weird moment and put everything back to normal. Finally, with her hand on the doorknob, she turns around and declares, “This is _not_ going to be a thing.”

Kylo smirks, and the world makes sense again. “If you say so, sweetheart.”

****

* * *

 

It becomes a thing.

Not a big deal of a thing, and certainly not a _real_ thing, but as they enter their fifth month of whatever the hell this is, Rey has to admit that she most definitely has _a thing_ with her enemy. Former enemy?

No, enemy. They’re still awful to each other, after all, and it’s not like every argument ends in sex. There was that one time she called him out for being an asshole to his family and he asked her _what would_ you _know about family?_ and they didn’t speak to each other for two whole weeks.

But then he showed up at her place with takeout and reassurances after Poe mentioned something about her messing up a test and feeling awful about it, and they’ve been back to semi-normal ever since.

Semi-normal, of course, means shouting at each other in the middle of a frat party and finding themselves in the tiny hall closet five minutes later.

The door locks – probably for this exact purpose, given that they’re in a frat house – and everyone’s too drunk to notice their absence, anyway, so she drags Kylo into the closet and pushes him up against the wall the second he closes the door.

After, instead of getting dressed, Kylo sinks to the ground with his back to the wall and pulls her into his lap. “Bad day?” he asks gently, his fingers combing through her hair.

They don’t do this. They don’t linger after, and they don’t talk, and they don’t ask about each other’s day with a look that could almost pass for concern.

Rey sighs and lets her head fall onto his shoulder. “That obvious?”

“I know you,” Kylo shrugs, and… when did that happen, anyway? When did they start being able to recognize each other’s moods and tells? “Besides, I could tell you were spoiling for a fight the minute you walked in.”

“Sorry I screamed at you about…” She can’t even remember what it was she’d started the fight over, only that she’s been in a bad mood for two days and sometimes just the sight of him is enough to push her over and get her blood boiling.

Force of habit, probably, or some kind of rage muscle memory, but that doesn’t mean it’s fair of her to take her frustrations out on him.

“Spilling beer on you, I think,” Kylo supplies. “Of course, I was just standing there minding my own business and you were the one who bumped into me,” he adds nonchalantly, “but I think everyone’s used to us making a scene by now.”

“Ugh,” Rey groans, looping her arms around his neck as she hides her face in the curve of his shoulder. “That was so stupid. It’s just, Plutt is being an asshole again and I can’t quit until Poe can get me a job at the café and I totally forgot I had a paper due today…” She pulls back and makes an effort to look him in the eye. “Still, that was shitty of me. I’m sorry.”

Kylo laughs. It’s quiet, so quiet she probably would’ve missed it if not for the fact that she’s literally in his lap. But she’s close enough to hear a soft chuckle and feel the slight shake of his chest, and there’s this smile on his face, something warm and fond as he looks at her.

“Rey, we argue all the time,” he points out. “That’s basically our thing. You don’t have to apologize.”

Except… when was the last time they’d actually _fought_? When was the last time they’d traded painful, personal jabs with the sole intention of hurting each other? Rey can’t recall anything after the incident about his parents, and that was nearly two months ago.

“Right,” she mumbles, reaching for Kylo’s discarded shirt on the ground. The sweat on her skin has cooled enough for her to feel a slight chill in the air, and they should probably get dressed anyway. “Yeah, that’s our thing.”

But is it really?

****

* * *

  ****

At some point it becomes normal for him to show up at her place and drag her to bed without them fighting beforehand. Sometimes Rey thinks maybe she should be more concerned about this sudden development but really, it’s not _that_ big of a deal, right? They still don’t cuddle afterwards, and he never spends the night, and that’s really all that matters.

But then one day she’s watching him get dressed while she’s still lounging in bed, and out of nowhere Rey hears herself asking, “Are you going to Poe’s show later?”

Kylo pauses, his fingers hovering over the top button of his hopelessly wrinkled shirt. “Are you?”

Rey pulls herself up against the headboard and shrugs. “Have to, if I don’t want him to guilt trip me about it for the next fifty years.” She loves Poe, really, and his band is actually decent most of the time, but they always end up playing in the most overpriced, pretentious venues for some reason. At least if Kylo is there she won’t have to deal with hipsters hitting on her. It’s not like she _wants_ people to think they’re together or anything, of course; it just makes life easier for her.

“Okay,” Kylo says, running a hand through his hair as if he stands even the slightest chance at taming the mess she’s made of it. “Then I’ll see you there.”

It sounds almost like he’s going just for her. Before Rey can process that, he crosses the room to her side of the bed and drops a kiss on her forehead as if he does this all the time, as if they’re the kind of people who kiss each other goodbye.

“See you later, sweetheart,” he murmurs, lips brushing across her temple, and then he walks out of her room and seconds later she hears the front door closing behind him.

Rey stays in bed for the longest time, trying to make sense of what the _fuck_ just happened. They don’t do that – they don’t do tender kisses on the forehead, they don’t do tender _anything_.

But Kylo does it again later that night, saves her a seat next to him at the bar and pulls her closer with a hand around her waist to sneak a kiss hello before the rest of their friends show up.

It’s been eight months since that day in the kitchen, since the first time they fell into bed together. In the beginning every minute with him had felt so deliciously wrong, the sneaking around and fighting-as-foreplay and absurdity of it all sending a thrill down her spine every single time.

Whatever this is, it hasn’t felt wrong for a while now. But tonight… tonight Rey finds herself wondering for the very first time if she's made a huge mistake.

****

* * *

 

A few days later she deliberately starts a debate about his favorite movie and tries not to panic when his retorts lack fire. It really doesn’t help that the look in his eyes suggests he’s humoring her rather than fighting her.

That glint of mirth transforms into mischief once he gets his head between her legs, and no matter how hard she tugs at his hair or how much she curses him out, Kylo seems determined to drag this out.

“Good things come to those who wait, sweetheart,” he murmurs against her inner thigh, and she wants to scoff at him, wants to pull him up and kiss that insufferable smirk off his face.

“God, I _hate_ you,” Rey groans instead, just because she can’t remember the last time she told him so and that, combined with the lingering kisses and soft looks they’ve been trading recently… that feels dangerous.

Kylo shrugs and presses a kiss to her hip. “I know,” he mumbles, a soft, resigned thing rather than the smirk she’d expected, rather than the smug little grin that usually follows.

It sounds… wrong, somehow. “Hey,” she finds herself whispering gently, tugging at his hair to get his attention. Kylo looks at her, and her breath hitches.

“Come up here,” Rey orders quietly, choking down a dozen questions she’s not ready to hear the answers to.

She pulls him up and he comes willingly, all earlier plans of teasing forgotten as the air around them grows thick with something other than their usual animosity. Kylo looks at her the entire time, even when she closes her eyes and falls apart for him, and it feels like something Rey wouldn’t dream of asking for in a million years, wouldn’t even _dare_ to wish for.

“Still hate me?” he asks a few minutes later, one hand slung around her waist as she rests her head on his chest. There’s something hiding under his casual façade, an underlying note of vulnerability that she shouldn’t know him well enough to pick up on.

Rey reaches out blindly, swats at what she thinks is his arm. “Don’t ruin it,” she mutters.

Kylo laughs softly, holds her closer and brushes his lips across her forehead.

Five minutes pass.

Another five.

He shows no signs of getting up, and when his grip around her eventually grows slack Rey realizes he’s fallen asleep. She moves carefully, props herself up with a hand under her chin and reaches out to brush errant locks of hair off his face. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him this way, the first time he’s ever stayed long enough to fall asleep in her bed.

“I think I stopped hating you a long time ago,” Rey whispers into the night. He doesn’t hear her, doesn’t even stir, and she can’t tell if her sigh is one of relief or disappointment.

A minute later, she rests her head on his shoulder and allows herself to fall asleep in Kylo’s arms.

 

* * *

 

Finn and Poe throw her a tiny birthday party despite her protests, and it doesn’t help that Kylo doesn’t emerge from his room all night, not even to toss a half-hearted _happy birthday_ at her.

There’s cake and presents and Disney movies, complete with Finn’s best impressions of all the characters, and before she knows it the night is over and the guys are snoring on the couch and her heart is so heavy it hurts.

Rey pries an empty bowl out of Finn’s hand, drapes a blanket over each of them, and smiles fondly at her friends before she sets about turning off the TV and the lights. It’s not their fault that she hates her so-called birthday, and she loves them for trying to make it a day worth celebrating anyway.

But all the cake and presents and laughter in the world couldn’t make this day bearable.

Instead of returning to the couch, she finds herself taking a familiar path deeper into the apartment, one that leads her to Kylo’s door. It’s been months since the first – and only – time they spent the night together, but memories of warmth and comfort and being held linger still.

Her hand curls around the doorknob, and she slips into his room before she can let herself overthink it, remains quiet as she slowly eases the door shut and Kylo turns around to seek out his visitor.

“Rey?”

The only source of light in his room is an alarm clock, the kind with a bright red _3:02 AM_ glaring at her almost accusingly.

“Hey,” she whispers as his mattress dips under the weight of a newcomer. “Sorry, I know it’s late,” Rey adds with a wince – she hadn’t known exactly _how_ late when the idea had occurred to her – as she stretches out next to him, both of them facing each other in darkness.

“S’okay,” Kylo mumbles, reaching out to pull her closer. One hand curls around her waist as the other reaches blindly for a spare pillow, which she accepts with a quiet _thanks._ He props himself up on one hand, the haze of sleep slowly giving way to awareness, and after blinking at her a few times he asks, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just… it’s my birthday. Or it was, a few hours ago,” Rey amends after a glance at the clock.

Kylo’s fingers twitch against her side. “Yeah, I heard,” he mutters, and in the darkness she thinks she can make out a frown on his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Rey shrugs. The simple truth is that he’d never asked and so she hadn’t seen fit to force the information on him. But the real truth is… “I hate it. It’s not even my actual birthday – I’ll never know that one. It’s just the day they found me on the front steps of Niima House, abandoned like some kind of unloved toy a child had grown bored of.”

“Fuck,” she hears Kylo hiss under his breath, his form growing tense. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I had no idea…” It’s understandable, and she tells him so. After all, they’ve never had the Sad Backstory talk she’s had with the guys. Everything he knows about her past is just bits and pieces he’s put together from little comments here and there, just enough for him to use as ammunition against her back in the days when they still needed dirt on each other.

Silence falls between them as Kylo turns to lie on his back. The arm around her waist pulls her closer as he moves, and Rey finds herself in the exact same position she’d been in the night they fell asleep together. She makes herself comfortable and sighs as she tucks her head under Kylo’s chin; this is exactly what she needs. “This is nice,” Rey hears herself whispering into the night. “I know we usually have this whole thing where we pretend to hate each other, but this is nice too.”

“Pretend?” Kylo echoes a moment later. He pulls himself up against the headboard and stares down at her with an indecipherable look in his eyes. “Rey, when you say _pretend_ …”

She laughs, a startled little burst of air escaping her at the ridiculousness of him being so taken aback by something so obvious that even Finn has picked up on it. “Kylo, we’ve been doing this for a _year_. You can’t seriously think I _still_ hate you.”

An awful thought occurs to her; her throat goes dry and her stomach sinks and her heart stops. “Unless… unless _you_ still–”

Kylo pulls her up and into his lap. “Rey,” his voice is impossibly soft, a silent plea for her to look at him. “I never hated you,” he admits when she finally makes eye contact, a small smile playing on his lips as he runs a hand through her hair.

Rey jerks away from his touch as soon as her brain processes his words. ”What?!” she demands a little too loudly, and they both turn to look at his closed door with baited breath.

“I never hated you,” Kylo repeats a moment later, when no sound comes from the other side of the door.

“Then why…?”

“You know how Poe is always poking fun at my non-existent social skills?” he asks, to which Rey can merely nod. “You always avoided me whenever you came over to hang out with him, and I could never get you to even _look_ at me unless we were arguing, so… I figured if I couldn’t flirt with you, fighting would just have to do.”

She stares at him for the longest time, running through all of their arguments in her mind. “Wow,” Rey says when she eventually finds her voice. “Poe was _not_ kidding.” How has no one ever taught this poor man that using an orphan’s past against her is _not_ the way to her heart? Sure, she’s said her fair share of awful things to him, but that was back when she actually despised the man with every fiber of her being.

Kylo simply nods, tugging at his hair in a way she’s come to realize indicates embarrassment. “Yeah, I’m pretty much hopeless when it comes to meeting people. Making friends is hard enough. When I started crushing on you I just… panicked, pretty much,” he shakes his head and laughs at the memory. “I had no idea what to do, and I couldn’t ask Poe; he’d never let me live it down. So I just went along with it, and then this happened and I just… I didn’t want to make things weird. I didn’t want to lose you – not that I ever really had you in the first place, that is,” he adds in a hurry, turning his face away from her.

The way he looks… Rey recognizes it from the night they fell asleep together, from his immediate reaction to her saying _I hate you_. This time she can finally see it for what it really is, can finally admit to herself why it makes her heart hurt.

“Hey,” she brings both hands up to gently cup his face, and Kylo’s eyes flutter shut as he leans into her touch and nuzzles at one of her palms. “I didn’t want to make things weird either,” Rey says quietly, prompting him to look at her. “That’s why I didn’t say anything even when I realized my feelings for you had changed.”

“I didn’t realize you had feelings for me at all,” Kylo does his best to smirk at her, but even that can’t hide the way his voice shakes and his breath gets caught in his chest.

“Hatred is a feeling,” Rey points out with a shrug. “And so is…” So is love, but they’re not there yet, are they? “So is this,” she says instead, using her hands to draw him down into a kiss.

It’s soft and slow and everything they’ve never allowed it to be, and when she takes him into her Rey thinks she sees a shine in Kylo’s eyes that matches the tears she can feel in her own. This isn’t what she came here for, isn’t even remotely close to what she signed up for all those months ago when she reluctantly acknowledged that they had, in fact, become a thing, but she can’t find it in herself to be even the slightest bit bothered by how things have turned out.

After, he murmurs _stay_ into her neck and she promises to come back after a quick trip to the bathroom. Kylo greets her with open arms and a sleepy smile, and she climbs into his bed with no intention of leaving it before morning.

“Do you want me to set an alarm so that you can leave before the guys wake up?” he offers as she pulls the covers up around them and settles into his arms.

Rey considers her next words very carefully; she knows what she wants with Kylo now – _everything_ – and there’s only one thing that could keep her from it. “Do _you_ want me to leave before the guys wake up?” she asks quietly, steering her tone as far away from accusatory as possible.

Kylo shakes his head and pulls her flush against his chest. “I don’t want you to ever leave,” he murmurs into her hair, and warmth blossoms in every part of her.

“Then I won’t,” Rey assures him, pressing a kiss to his heart as they both drift off to sleep.

It’s a promise she ends up keeping for the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been working on this for three weeks at this point, so I’ve decided to make peace with the fact that I’m never going to be happy with it and just post it anyway. Hopefully this will snap me out of the worst case of writer’s block I’ve had in years.
> 
> As always, thank you for taking the time to read this and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any thoughts or comments you’d like to share!
> 
> UPDATE: [here's a bonus Kylo-POV alternate version of the last scene.](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/post/174342068015/i-swear-i-hate-you-when-you-leave-bonus-scene)


End file.
